Podcast: How Instructors Can Help Students Bridge Skill Gaps

College instructors spend most of their classroom time on content and often feel as if there is not enough time to cover everything. So the idea of adding more subjects to the mix can be daunting. Yet that is what Dr. Tanya Martini of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario is suggesting.

According to Dr. Martini, our graduates have a skills gap. They graduate without sufficient understanding of necessary career skills such as communication, collaboration, leadership, creativity and empathy. Along with the skills and knowledge of their profession, these are the transferable career skills that employers look for in a job candidate. But even when students have the skills, they are often unable to articulate them during a job interview.

In this week’s podcasts, Dr. Martini described why skills-based training is so important, ways that professors can integrate skills training into their curriculum, and how creating an e-portfolio can help students to demonstrate their skills to an employer.